


New Kid on the Block

by TheSigyn



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-15
Updated: 2011-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-15 09:57:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4602420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSigyn/pseuds/TheSigyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The new girl at school is making Amy’s life hell, and Rory can’t stand it. He may be young, and he may be meek, but he is going to talk some sense in that new girl Melody! God help him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Kid on the Block

**Author's Note:**

> The silence have really messed Melody up. I named her Stills because it's kind of like Silence.

  
  
Amelia Pond was no more than nine when the new girl at Ledworth Elementary started making her life hell.   
  
At first it was subtle things. An overly aggressive ball in gym class, that always seemed to connect with Amelia’s head. An assignment stolen from the teacher’s inbox. Then it became more actively aggressive. Melody stole her pencils, rifled her locker. It wasn’t until she broke Amelia’s chair — actually broke Amelia’s chair right out from underneath her! How does a nine-year-old snap a metal chair? — that Rory decided to do something about it.   
  
“Why does she hate you so much, Amelia?” Rory asked on Amelia’s front porch. “What did you do to her?”  
  
“I have no idea!” Amelia barked. She was holding an ice pack on her bruised elbow — she had knocked it when the chair went out from under her — and was sent home. “And call me Amy.”   
  
“Sorry, I forgot.” She had only recently asked to be called Amy. Mostly because of the way all the psychologists kept saying to her, “Now, Amelia, you know that can’t be true.” She was starting to hate her name. “How does that feel?” Rory asked, indicating her arm.   
  
“It hurts,” Amy said. She lifted up the swelling bruise.   
  
“The first day, you must have done something.”   
  
“I did not!” Amy snapped. “Mom said the same thing, but I wasn’t even one of the ones who teased her.”   
  
“Teased her?” Usually Rory and Amelia were in the same class, but this year they had been separated, so Rory hadn’t been there.   
  
“Yeah, she’s an orphan, so they say. And you know they’re never nice to the new girls. I thought I could be her friend. But when I came up and said, ‘Hi, I’m Amy,’ do you know what she did?”   
  
“No.”   
  
“She took my pencil and broke it in my face,” Amy said. “With her thumb. Then she threw it at me. I don’t know why she hates me, but she hates me, and I hate it.”   
  
Rory didn’t know what to do. “Want to play Doctor?” he asked.   
  
“No, I hurt too much.” Amy sounded glum.   
  
Rory stood up and went into the kitchen. A minute later he came back with a fresh ice pack. “I’m sorry you’re hurt.”   
  
“See you tomorrow, Rory,” Amy said, and he knew a dismissal when he heard one. But she took the ice pack.   
  
Rory walked back to the school with his shoulders squared. He knew Amy thought he was a wimp, but really he was only a wimp around Amy. She intimidated him, for reasons he could never understand — though for all that, he liked playing with her. But she was being bullied, and he was going to put a stop to it!   
  
  
  
***  
  
  
“Say uncle! Say uncle!” Melody shouted in his ear.   
  
“No!”   
  
Melody pushed another handful of dirt in Rory’s face. He closed his mouth and his eyes and tried to keep it out of his nose. “Say uncle!” She had him on the ground, her knee on his back, his arm twisted up behind him in a half-nelson.   
  
“Aunt!” Rory called out, and Melody laughed.   
  
“I said say UNCLE!” she said through a chuckle.  
  
“Let me go! What did I ever do to you?”   
  
“Nothing!” Melody snapped at him, and stood up. “You did absolutely NOTHING!” She kicked him hard in the side before she ran off.   
  
Rory lay on his back on the playground clutching his side for long moments before he climbed back to his feet. So much for talking some sense into a bully! He should never have tried this. He looked down. He was filthy, his school uniform was ruined. He couldn’t go home like this. His mum would kill him. Well. He should go over to Amy’s. She would lend him a new jacket, at least, and he could wash his face. He scrubbed the dirt on his cheeks so it wouldn’t look so much like he’d been crying.   
  
  
  
***  
  
  
“What happened to you?” Amy asked.   
  
“Nothing,” Rory said. “Can I use your bathroom?”  
  
Amy jumped down off the porch and grabbed hold of his jacket. “Rory Williams, you tell me the truth. What happened?”  
  
“I went to try and talk to Melody,” he admitted. “I told her who I was and she pounced me. She decided to hate me, too.”   
  
Amy’s face went pale around her freckles and her nose went narrow. “I’ve had about enough of this,” she said Scottishly, and she stalked off up the drive.   
  
“Amy. Amy, wait!” Rory called after her, but it was futile. He was forced to run after her still covered in dirt.   
  
Melody Stills was perched on the swing, pushing herself as high as she could go, so high the whole structure seemed ready to fling her out into the stratosphere. It looked like she was about to fling herself over the top. “Melody Stills, you get down here!” Amy shouted at her with her hands on her hips.   
  
Melody’s pendulous momentum faltered. For a few moments she sat still, swinging unguided back and forth as her stiff body caused the momentum to twist. Then she tensed, poised, and leapt off the swing at the moment of its apex. She landed perfectly and stood defiant, facing Amy with her dark face hard and sharp as flint.   
  
“What did you do to Rory?” Amy demanded.   
  
Melody crossed her arms and glared. “Shoved his face in the dirt,” Melody said. “Just like he deserved.”   
  
Amy’s tiny little fist reached up and clocked Melody in the face. “Don’t you dare do that to my friend!” Amy screamed.   
  
“Do that again and I’ll kill you!” Melody screamed back. “I could, you know! I don’t care if its impossible, I will!”   
  
“Hey, guys, stop it!” Rory said, trying to push in between them.   
  
“Stay out of this Rory,” Amy said, and both Amy and Melody pushed him away with identical movements of one arm.   
  
“Why do you hate me so much?” Amy demanded.   
  
“Why shouldn’t I hate you?” Melody cried back. She snatched at Amy’s hair and tugged. Amy screamed and pushed her away. Long lovely red strands dangled from Melody’s fingers, with a little skin on them. A trickle of blood ran down Amy’s forehead.   
  
“Fine, then!” Amy yelled. “Hate me! I can’t stop you. But you’re not to touch Rory again.”   
  
“You’ll get no promises from me!”   
  
“I don’t mind you bugging me, but you’re not to go after my friends!”   
  
“I’ll go after you and your selfish little Roman until you both rue the day you ever met me!”   
  
Amy slugged her again. “Rory is the least selfish person in the universe!” she screamed.  
  
“Yeah, right!” Melody cried out through her now bleeding lip. “Then why didn’t he —” and suddenly she seemed to choke on her words. She doubled up as if she was going to throw up, and shuddered. Then she looked frightened, as if expecting Rory and Amy to jump her in her sudden vulnerability. She backed up warily, but the two friends were too bemused to do anything other than stare.   
  
“Hey, you okay?” Rory asked.   
  
Melody started. She looked shocked that anyone would ask. “What do you care?”   
  
“I just wanted to see you were okay. Are you sick?”   
  
“No. I just... there’s things I’m not supposed to say, and...” She stopped. “I’m fine!” she said defiantly, mostly to herself. She turned away and started to walk off.   
  
She looked very alone striding quickly across the empty schoolyard. Amy and Rory both looked after her for a moment. Then they looked at each other. Wordlessly, by mutual consensus, they started after her.   
  
They didn’t catch up until they were near the river. “What do you want?” Melody snapped.   
  
Neither of the friends had an answer, so they kept quiet.   
  
“Fine,” Melody said, “I’ll quit bugging you, now leave me alone.”   
  
“I just want to know why you were bugging us in the first place,” Rory asked. “I mean, Amy only wanted to be your friend.”   
  
Melody stared at her, incredulous. “Yeah, right.”   
  
“Well, why else did you think I came over?” Amy asked. “Since when is ‘Hi, I’m Amy,’ a declaration of war?”  
  
“Why would you want to be MY friend?” Melody asked. She sounded annoyed.   
  
“Why wouldn’t I?”   
  
Melody looked sad for a long moment. “I don’t have friends.” Her face hardened and she sat down on a cement retaining wall. “My own mother would rather shoot me than be MY friend.”   
  
“Well... I don’t have friends, either,” Amy said.   
  
“You got Rory.”   
  
“He’s a boy!” Amy said. “And he’s Rory, he’s not a friend.”   
  
Rory looked away and wiped some of the dirt from his face.   
  
“Well, I’m not your friend, either,” Melody said, sounding like she was backtracking.   
  
“Why not?”   
  
“I hate you.”   
  
“Why?” Amy sounded desperate now. “Really, what did I ever DO to you?”   
  
Melody chewed on her thumbnail. It was dirty from her attack on Rory. She didn’t answer.   
  
“Fine,” Amy said, annoyed. “Do what you want. But don’t pick on Rory.” She grabbed Rory’s arm and pulled him with her for a moment as she started back home.   
  
Rory paused and looked back. Melody was crying.   
  
He pulled away from Amy and went back to her. Kneeling on the ground he searched his pockets. He found a wrapped peppermint in his pocket and held it out to Melody. It was dirty and squashed, but he held it out earnestly. The only peace offering he had. “Here. You want a peppermint?”   
  
Melody sniffed as she stared at it.   
  
“You can be my friend if you don’t want to be Amy’s.”   
  
Melody’s hand was shaking as she took the peppermint. “I don’t want to be your friend,” Melody said quietly. She looked up at Amy, who had followed him. “And I don’t want to be your friend,” she said to her. And for some reason she started crying harder.   
  
Amy came up and sat beside her. “Can we help, somehow?” she asked. “I just wanted to get to know you. I wanted to be your friend because they said you were crazy. Well, people say I’m crazy. And I’m not. I heard you don’t have any parents. And I feel like I know how that feels. I mean, I DO have parents, but... sometimes it feels like I don’t. I don’t know. Maybe I am crazy, sometimes I remember things two different ways. But... I mean, you just looked COOL.” Amy shook her head. “I just wanted to be your friend.”   
  
“We could try and make it up to you,” Rory said, “for having such crappy parents.”   
  
Melody sniffed. “Do you ever feel completely alone in the universe?”   
  
“Yes,” Rory said, sitting down beside her.   
  
“No,” Amy said. “Whenever I feel alone I think about the Doctor.”   
  
Melody looked up. “Who’s the Doctor?”   
  
Amy grinned.   
  
“Uh-oh,” Rory said. “Now you’ve done it.” He stood up. “I’ll leave you to it,” he told Amy.   
  
“Very funny!” Amy called after him. “You like playing Doctor, too!”   
  
“Only because you do,” Rory said truthfully. He put his hands in his pockets. “You okay, Mels?” he asked.   
  
Melody had stopped crying. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and fiddled with the peppermint with her fingers. “Yeah,” she said. “I think I’ll be okay.”   
  
Rory looked at the two girls. Amy was pale and red with blood drying on her forehead. Melody’s dark face was tear streaked with a split lip and a red spot which was going to become a black eye. Rory himself was covered in dirt and more than a little the worse for the wear. But suddenly he felt like everything was going to be okay, too. “Well, if there’s anything else you’re not supposed to say, Mels, don’t make yourself sick over it,” he said. He waved. “I’ll see you later.”   
  
“Okay, tell me about the Doctor,” he heard Melody ask behind him.   
  
Rory sighed. He realized that now he was going to have TWO Doctor obsessed, overly demanding, somewhat violent girls he was going to have to navigate. He didn’t know why that thought could possibly make him happy... but it did.   



End file.
